Namhae's "American Village."

There's already a German Village in Gyeongsangbuk-do's Namhae county, and a couple of years ago they started construction on an American Village. Not much information on it yet, but here and here are a couple of photo galleries from August and September, respectively. The homes look pretty similar to what I drive past when I'm back in Pennsylvania, but the biggest difference between America and the American Village is that the latter looks to have hardly any grass. With houses that size I'm accustomed to seeing bigger lawns. Hell of a view, though.

The German Village was set up to bring back Koreans who had gone to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s to find work, so I wonder if the American Village operates on the same premise. Here's a New York Times article on the village for starters; check out the post on Muan in the next paragraph for more links and pictures.

You may remember that Jeollanam-do's Muan county is setting up an American Town for returning Koreans. The residents will be teaching conversational English to the locals. Awesome. As Jens-Olaf of Madang said in a comment on that post, the German Village is dealing with an aging population, just like the rest of the county, and is having trouble attracting younger residents. Just like the rest of the county. I suspect eventually the two American Villages will have to cope with that. The German Village, for instance, shows up in dramas and commercials from time to time, as I suspect the American Villages will. Perhaps these villages will transform into language immersion villages for the locals.